NASA & Others

[DaemonWarrior44]

What do you think about NASA and other space agencies?
Are they pointless? Do they have too big budgets? Whatever your answer, justify it, please.
I love space exploration, so I obviously support space agencies and its projects/missions (I'm not a scientist or anything like that, I'm just obsessed with it, ).

[DexterSmythe]

9 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

What do you think about NASA and other space agencies?
Are they pointless? Do they have too big budgets? Whatever your answer, justify it, please.
I love space exploration, so I obviously support space agencies and its projects/missions (I'm not a scientist or anything like that, I'm just obsessed with it, ).

I think that private companies like SpaceX are the future of space exploration because they are private companies, and can be funded by public interest, or can be sponsored by the government if need be. This also gives them incentive to figure out how to explore space in a cheaper way.

[WMGroomAK]

This is just my personal opinion, but a lot of government science based agencies like NASA and USGS provide critical resources and technological advances so long as they are focused on the science aspect without being too dragged into the political arena.  I enjoy quite a bit of the science that they publish and a lot of it goes to help advance our everyday lives as well as society, but I don't enjoy having to try and determine if a scientific abstract was written for scientific purposes or if it was written under political motives to help raise revenue from the government for continued operation.

[DaemonWarrior44]

1 minute ago, WMGroomAK said:

I don't enjoy having to try and determine if a scientific abstract was written for scientific purposes or if it was written under political motives to help raise revenue from the government for continued operation.

What do you mean? Fake scientific discoveries or what?

[WMGroomAK]

4 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

What do you mean? Fake scientific discoveries or what?

I'm not sure I would classify it as fake discoveries.  If we just look at the US Government though, you have NASA, USGS, NMFS, NOAA, EPA and many more that have scientists and scientific experts working in many different fields with a lot of them having areas that cross.  To some extent this is understandable, however if we take a topic like Climate Change and how this as a scientific topic of discussion has changes throughout the years, in the 1960's & 70's the USGS was asserting that the Earth was undergoing Global Cooling.  This was immediately followed up by Global Warming and then Climate Change and now we have Anthropogenic Climate Change.  This topic by itself, while important to research, has the USGS, NASA, NOAA & EPA all conducting their own research on causes.  Toss in all the private independent research and foreign government research being conducted and I now have to wonder how much of what is published is actually based on proper science and how much is some researchers method of trying to drum up enough interest to maintain a government job or grant.

[DaemonWarrior44]

1 minute ago, WMGroomAK said:

I'm not sure I would classify it as fake discoveries.  If we just look at the US Government though, you have NASA, USGS, NMFS, NOAA, EPA and many more that have scientists and scientific experts working in many different fields with a lot of them having areas that cross.  To some extent this is understandable, however if we take a topic like Climate Change and how this as a scientific topic of discussion has changes throughout the years, in the 1960's & 70's the USGS was asserting that the Earth was undergoing Global Cooling.  This was immediately followed up by Global Warming and then Climate Change and now we have Anthropogenic Climate Change.  This topic by itself, while important to research, has the USGS, NASA, NOAA & EPA all conducting their own research on causes.  Toss in all the private independent research and foreign government research being conducted and I now have to wonder how much of what is published is actually based on proper science and how much is some researchers method of trying to drum up enough interest to maintain a government job or grant.

Ah, do you mean forcing or tergiversation of results? Just to caught the government's attention...

[Thunderpup]

I am very supportive of NASA and other similar agencies around the world, but there may come a time when they aren't the forerunners of space exploration.

 

NASA is designed in such a way that no matter how efficient they are they will always spend more money than a private enterprise.  SpaceX is able to manufacture their rockets at a reduced cost compared to NASA because they do so in one giant facility that acts as a assembly line of sorts. NASA, on the other hand, is spread out across the country.  Their facilities are so spread out because it gives them protection from politicians.  if a politician wants to cut NASA's budget then there is a good chance jobs will be lost in their district. 

One of the things i've always like about NASA is that they are one of the few gov't entities that aren't polarizing along political lines.  Conservatives and liberals alike support them, and even people in other countries favor NASA over their own country's space agency.

My beef however is their current trend toward focusing on climate change studying.  It's about the only line item in NASA's budget under Obama that always got increased and was never up for cuts.  
Don't get me wrong i fully support funding climate change studies, but that should be handled by NOAA whose job is literally to study our climate.  NASA can support this of course, but they really don't need a billion dollars to do so.  I say transfer most of that to NOAA and let NASA focus on what it was designed for. Advancing Space and Aeronautics technology. 

[DaemonWarrior44]

3 minutes ago, Thunderpup said:

I am very supportive of NASA and other similar agencies around the world, but there may come a time when they aren't the forerunners of space exploration.

Yes, private compannies are the future of space exploration, but that doesn't means that public agencies are gonna "die".
NASA and ESA should start working with SpaceX in big projects, like Mars or farther, not just in the ISS.
Public agencies should take care of reasearch and planning while private compannies should take care of production.

[Thunderpup]

29 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

NASA and ESA should start working with SpaceX in big projects, like Mars or farther, not just in the ISS.
 

They already do.  There is a lot of cooperation for those long term projects.

The problem is NASA is still in a reboot of sorts with their rocket program.  Since the shuttle was retired, and Constellation was scraped, they are still working on the means to put people into orbit reliably.  

 

 

[DaemonWarrior44]

Just now, Thunderpup said:

They already do.  There is a lot of cooperation for those long term projects.

The problem is NASA is still in a reboot of sorts with their rocket program.  Since the shuttle was retired, and Constellation was scraped, they are still working on the means to put people into orbit reliably.  

 

 

Oh, I didn't knew that. I thought that NASA was on its own in big missions. Yeah, I miss the Space Shuttle, , haha...

[BuckGup]

NASA gets 1% of funding that the military does, yet they accomplish so much more. We know we can't save Earth so just move to another planet. NASA and other private agencies need budgets in the Billions

[DaemonWarrior44]

2 minutes ago, Tibbles said:

the other way around, nasa gets way too little from the US government

 

Just now, SamStrecker said:

NASA gets 1% of funding that the military does, yet they accomplish so much more. We know we can't save Earth so just move to another planet. NASA and other private agencies need budgets in the Billions

I know, but I made that question simply because some people may have a different point of view on space exploration.

[Thunderpup]

47 minutes ago, SamStrecker said:

NASA gets 1% of funding that the military does, yet they accomplish so much more. We know we can't save Earth so just move to another planet. NASA and other private agencies need budgets in the Billions

NASA's budget may be dwarfed by Defense spending, but they also get a lot of indirect funding out of Defense Spending.  There are a lot of joint ventures and programs, and NASA never pays the military to recover their stuff that splashes down in the ocean. 

Also NASA's budget is already in the billions, about 17 at the moment. 

[DaemonWarrior44]

1 minute ago, Thunderpup said:

NASA's budget may be dwarfed by Defense spending, but they also get a lot of indirect funding out of Defense Spending.  There are a lot of joint ventures and programs, and NASA never pays the military to recover their stuff that splashes down in the ocean. 

Also NASA's budget is already in the billions, about 17 at the moment. 

$19,5 billion (2017). Trump administration has surprisingly increased NASA's budget.

[Thunderpup]

23 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

$19,5 billion (2017). Trump administration has surprisingly increased NASA's budget.

It really shouldn't be a surprise. NASA traditionally has fared better, financially,  under republicans than it has democrats.  Mostly due to how close space development and military development are to each other.  NASA and the DOD are very close bedfellows which is good for NASA in the long run, it it is a shame other science related agencies don't have that sort of relationship. 

[DaemonWarrior44]

1 minute ago, Thunderpup said:

It really shouldn't be a surprise. NASA traditionally has fared better, financially,  under republicans than it has democrats.  Mostly due to how close space development and military development are to each other.  NASA and the DOD are very close bedfellows which is good for NASA in the long run, it it is a shame other science related agencies don't have that sort of relationship. 

Yes, but it did surprise me because Trump and his team are anti-science, Climate Change deniers, etc.

[DaemonWarrior44]

4 minutes ago, Thunderpup said:

It really shouldn't be a surprise. NASA traditionally has fared better, financially,  under republicans than it has democrats.

Wait, the biggest NASA's budget was in the 1960s during Johnson administration (democrat): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

[Thunderpup]

35 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

Yes, but it did surprise me because Trump and his team are anti-science, Climate Change deniers, etc.

Science has many different fields and the topic of climate change has a lot of economic strings attached to it.  Which is the key reason for a lot of the "denying"

28 minutes ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

Wait, the biggest NASA's budget was in the 1960s during Johnson administration (democrat): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

I said traditionally, not always lol, and that was during the height of the space race to the moon.  After we got there it dropped. 

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 hours ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

What do you think about NASA and other space agencies?
Are they pointless? Do they have too big budgets? 

On the contrary, they are the only thing to still have a point. No better way to spend resources we don't need to stay alive in reasonable conditions.

I'm sure you can find exceptions, like deep-sea exploration or other earthly scientific endeavors. But over-simplifying s bit , space exploration (and eventually, migration) is the next big step for humanity as a species.

Most everything else, even apparently important things like helping poverty or curing this or that disease, are meaningless in the big scheme of things, given we are way past extinction risk. Now it's time to take humanity (and maybe not just humans, but earth life as a whole) from single-planet state to multi-planet, and hopefully to multi-star one day.

[DaemonWarrior44]

3 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Most everything else, even apparently important things like helping poverty or curing this or that disease, are meaningless in the big scheme of things, given we are way past extinction risk.

I think we, as a species, can do everything at the same time: Eradicate poverty, cure diseases and migrate to space. I hope we do so.

[DaemonWarrior44]

7 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I'm sure you can find exceptions, like deep-sea exploration or other earthly scientific endeavors.

Sea exploration is relatively important, thanks to it we know that life can survive even deeper and in more extreme conditions than we thought.

[Donut417]

8 hours ago, DaemonWarrior44 said:

What do you think about NASA and other space agencies?
Are they pointless? Do they have too big budgets? Whatever your answer, justify it, please.
I love space exploration, so I obviously support space agencies and its projects/missions (I'm not a scientist or anything like that, I'm just obsessed with it, ).

I think NASA is essential. They do a lot of scientific research related to the universe. That being said I do think some privatization needs to happen with space tech. NASA might put a man on mars, but its going to take a large corporation to colonize it likely. I really wish my government would stop building weapons and killing all the people it does around the world and use those funds for space research. With the US's defense budget we could already probably be to mars by now. Plus at the rate we are growing population and using all of our resources we might need need go to mars just to have room for every one to live. We might need to mine out asteroids to have resources to use. 

[DaemonWarrior44]

6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I think NASA is essential. They do a lot of scientific research related to the universe. That being said I do think some privatization needs to happen with space tech. NASA might put a man on mars, but its going to take a large corporation to colonize it likely. I really wish my government would stop building weapons and killing all the people it does around the world and use those funds for space research. With the US's defense budget we could already probably be to mars by now. Plus at the rate we are growing population and using all of our resources we might need need go to mars just to have room for every one to live. We might need to mine out asteroids to have resources to use. 

I agree, totally.

[killcomic]

Government space agencies are extremely important. This planet I not going to last forever and we're already getting to the point where we're overpopulated.

Private companies are all good to lower cost and the more people sorting out problems with space travel the better, but being private companies they only have one interest, to make money, no matter how many people they screw over.

So government space agencies are needed to do science and research without the blindness of having a huge dollar sign obscuring the way.

[Tech_Dreamer]

the inventions associated with the NASA has a has significant impact on people in a broad scale, they are essential & assimilate the brightest minds into one place , this pretty much makes it essential